Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Well today I fixed up a bath of cupcakes using a boxed cake mix that's been sitting here for awhile. I thought it would make a good snack for me to have ready to eat whenever I want. I usedDuncan Hines German Chocolate Cake Mix & they turned out grand!

Recipe:

My Healthier Boxed Chocolate Cupcakes

Box german chocolate cake mix

1 6oz tub unsweetened applesauce

1 tsp orange zest

1/2 cup oats

1/3 cup fresh squeezed orange juice

1 tsp cinnamon

1 cup water

2 large eggs

I just mixed it up in my kitchenaid mixer (my favorite thing) & put them into the muffin cups & baked them for 22 minutes. Let them cool on a rack & they are ready for all your snack breaks.

I only fill the cups about 1/2 full so they would be slightly smaller portion size & not as many calories that way. So if I have just one it's actually a pretty healthy snack.

After they were done I changed a few of them so I could have some variety like this:

Using a butterknife while warm I spread 1 tsp of smucker's ice cream topping caramel flavor on a few of the tops.

On some of them I spread the caramel & sprinkled just a tsp of coconut on too! (these are marvelous)!

On 1 I sprinkled a mixture of splenda & cinnamon

On 1 I put a 1/2 tsp Hershey's chocolate syrup

I've left all the rest plain, this made about 28 small cupcakes.I plan on eating some of them plain as they are but a few I will add cool whip to when I'm ready to eat them. I love the sugar free cool whip. You could also put a little cool whip and a touch of coconut if you wanted.

I noticed that these mainly just taste like a lighter chocolate cupcake. I mean you can't really taste the orange zest or the cinnamon at all. And definitely none of the applesauce. And the oats are not visible in the cakes at all, which may be good to start putting in your cupcakes for your kids to get their oatmeal.

So far I've only ate one since I've only needed one snack. But now at least i'm looking forward more to actually having to have my snacks!

Don't splurge on exotic fruits or expensive seasonings, substitute less expensive fruits you know you like already. Make your own seasoning combinations from your pantry of spices, use the internet to get the right amount of each to make your own expensive type of seasonings.

One example of this I did just this week. We were at Sam's Club & we sampled a bit of their Chicken they had cooked. They were trying to push Emeril's Essence Of Emeril Spice Blend for about $10.00 a big bottle. It tasted really good.

I came home & looked up his spices on the computer. I purchased a bottle of store brand "essence" spice huge one for about $2.50 & I flavored it up with some of my other spices I had around from the internet list I had.

It tastes pretty much the same! I can see paying 10 bucks for a small bottle of spices like that, sorry emeril lagasse.

The point is make your own spices and you can be creative as you want to be.

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Tonight we fixed Stromboli's in a way we hadn't fixed them before & they were excellent. We spread out the ground beef about 1lb maybe a bit more & we seasoned it liberally with a sprinkling all over of kosher salt, garlic powder, parmesan cheese & a tiny bit of oregano. Then we rolled the beef into a hot dog shape, granted a huge hot dog shape but still you get the picture. We wrapped each of these in plastic wrap individually & stuck them in the freezer for about an hour.

Then we dropped them carefully down into a big pot of boiling water still inside the plastic wrap! They cooked for about 15 minutes like this until the meat had changed it's color to a really ugly light brown color;seriously ugly is the only way to describe these at that point.

With tongs we carefully took them out of the water & laid them on a larger platter to cool a bit. Then we unwrapped each one as we made it's sandwich & then moved on to the next one.

For the sandwich we used some great hoagie buns & we took the "dogs" shaped beef unwrapped it & dipped the whole thing down into a pot of Ragu sauce. (we like parmesan & romano the best).Then we moved the sauced up dog to the bun & laid a slice of provolone cheese on it. Then we put a bit more sauce but just a bit. The sauce on the stove is mainly for dipping now & at the table off your plates.

After we got all of them fixed up we put them on a cookie sheet & put them under the oven broiler just until the cheese melted & turned a bit golden brown.

These were delicious!! They tasted much better than our earlier tries at making a Stromboli. The meat was really moist & spicy, just perfect amount of juiciness. No crusty brown edges. So mission accomplished. I hope you will make these in your home too.

Monday, December 29, 2008

Today I made some new to me snacks. I'm sure everyone else has been fixing these for years but me, not so much. I made up 2 boxes at once of my sugar free cherry jell-o & added diced fruits to them before I put them in the fridge. It was really easy & I don't know why I haven't been doing this all along.

It seems it will help me some with my dinner anyway since sometimes I'm still a little bit hungry even though I'm done & other's at the table still have what seems to me to be a bunch of food left on their plates. I know I eat a little slower now since I read it's better for you too. So anyway, this jello will help me since I'll have it to eat while everyone else finishes up their meals. I think since they are having double or more portions of everything for dinner, which is why I'm done way before them.

Today I ate the tiny bits of apples in the jello and it was pretty good. I was surprised how it blended the apple flavor in with the jello. If I hadn't known it was an apple I don't think I'd have been able to tell what kind of fruit it was for sure. Maybe some parents could actually sneak some healthy fruits in for their kids this way. I'm sure a lot already do that.

Tomorrow I'm having the jello with the banana pieces. I'm sure I'll like that because I remember having it in school years ago. I did only put a little in it as I didn't want to have to worry about running my numbers up from the banana, since it's such a high carb count fruit. I wonder if oranges would be good in these or if they would get bitter tasting?

Sunday, December 28, 2008

Are you having trouble with your memory? I am definitely having this problem more often than I want to.

I've decided to make my snack option every 2&1/2hour intervals instead of the 3 hour times I use now in order to keep my mind more alert. It seems I've been trying the 3 hour schedule.

for quite awhile now but I was making too many small mistakes so I guess I'll move it up a bit. It seems that we have to eat a lot of snacks don't we? I've made up some sugar free jello's for later and this time I put some fruit in them which should help to be a lower calorie snack for me.

Thursday, December 25, 2008

Are you having a tough Christmas this year? I know it's harder when you're diabetic. Just be sure and make yourself a bunch of extra sugarfree treats so you can be munching right along with the rest of them. Also have a bowl of prezels or mucho's potato crisps out (luv'em), if you pour those into a bowl you can have quite a few of them without running up your carb count. I believe a serving of those chips are 16! So if you divide it up between the pretzels and the chips you'll feel like you are eating a lot of stuff but you'll still be safe.

Of course have some bowls of ready to eat prepared fruits and nuts out too as they friendlier to you than some of the other snacks this time of year. Sure, if you really feel you are craving something else just eat a tiny portion of it. It will be enough to satisfy your craving without gorging yourself and feeling bad.

I hope these tips help you. I'd love it if I'd see your comments on this blog.

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Well today I couldn't take not making some kind of homemade fudge for the holiday's anymore so I did it! I made up a batch of completely sugar free tasty chocolate fudge for the first time.

I put all this into a big pot on the stove:

Sugar Free Chocolate Fudge Recipe

1&1/2 cups splenda

2/3 cup evaporated,canned skim milk

2 tbsp white karo corn syrup

1/2 tsp salt

2 tbsp margarine

2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 tsp vanilla (after turning off heat)

1/2 cup walnuts (afer it's ready to pour)

I threw all that into the nonstick pot and turned the heat on to medium and once it started melting I started stirring with a nonstick spatula.Once it was all smooth and all the sugars were melted and everything was blended thru I shut off the heat and added thevanilla extract and the nuts and stirred it all up again. I let itsit like that on off for about 5 minutes to cool some.

Then I poured it into a glass casserole dish that I heavilybuttered so it would come out easily.

I covered it with foil and put it in the fridge & it is fantastic!!Easy and great. I'm putting this recipe on here so I don't lose it.

My test number after 2 hours was only 100 so this is a good oneto use probably for all of us.

If you try this recipe let me know what you think of it in the comments.

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Tonight I was in my annual christmas baking Mood so I set out to bake off the rest of my "brick" cookies that I mentioned in a previous post. I got the plastic wrapped roll of dough out of the fridge only to have them fall apart while I was trying to slice them! I finally just decided to bake them anyway. So I scooped up any large chunks that I could out of this horrible mess and I baked them for only 10 minutes thinking they surely would be softer this time. But no, they are just as bricky as before. I didn't even roll them into the little snowballs this time and I baked them only half of the required time it had said before.

But at least I made them so I could eat them without breaking my teeth by spreading each one with a huge dollop of Fluff. It's marshmallow creme in a jar. I hadn't used it before but I checked & it's only 10 carbs per 2tbsps! I think it had like 6 grams of sugar so voil'a this is perfect for my little brick cookies. This fluff stuff is fantastic if you haven't tried it I do recommend it!And the holiday sprinkles stick to it pretty good too.

I did bake up a batch of cupcakes that turned out good. I had added oats,dried fruit pcs and a bit of a banana to them thinking that they would mess up but they took the extra ingredients just fine. I'm eating the cupcaskes unfrosted so they are actually pretty good to have around for all the snack attacks we have to endure. Bake a batch & eat them unfrosted and see if you don't agree with me. Hey, I bet that fluff would be good on one of those too for an extra holiday bonus when your carbs will allow it.

A couple of days ago I made up a batch of Snowball Cookies that turned out not as good as expected. For one thing I tried to healthify the recipe so instead of all purpose flour I used whole wheat pastry flour. At first eating right from the oven they seemed to taste pretty good. But, the next day I bit into one and it was more the consistency of a brick! Sure it was still a pretty tasty brick but still, it was way too hard.

I guess I have learned you cannot substitute out all the white flour because the cookes will have no tenderness to them. I should have said a hockey puck since they are round but I think you get the picture just the same.

Monday, December 22, 2008

I just noticed that I've made over 200 posts to this blog! I'm very pleased that I have been keeping it up and plan to continue to do so.

Today turned out to be a very good relaxing day for me. We had my favorite Gallagher's local pizza delivered for dinner and as usual it did not disappoint. I was so proud of myself because even though I didn't take my blood glucose test (only on saturday's now), I only ate 2 pieces! yea to me! It was very good but I managed to stop. Strangely enough I was stuffed. I used to always eat 3 pieces of pizza but it seems now that I've made it a habit of eating 2 I am pretty stuffed at 2. Strange how your body plays tricks on your mind like that isn't it?

Have you ever had Gallagher's Pizza before? We love the sausage and pepperoni.

will take over your body and consume it if you let it. You need to motivate

yourself to take back over your life immediately. You have to stand up and

prove to yourself that you can handle it. It's not pretty but you are going

to have to take it on anyway. You have to make peace with it and accept the

fact that yes you have it. Now inspire yourself to do something about

controlling it instead of letting it control you.

After youre' first diagnosed it will help you tremendously to go to

google.com and type in diabetic message boards in the search engine box.

You'll get about a million hits. Pick out a bunch of them and go to them and

actually look them over, read a lot of the comments and get a feel for the

forums. There will be some you will like and want to keep reading and some

you just don't prefer. Pick 2 or 3 good ones that you like and register with

them to enable you to add your comments to them. Find a topic that you are

concerned about it and introduce yourself and post some of your feelings on

the board. It is such a small step but it will allow you to feel so much

better. Just putting your two cents in will help you like you are talking to

an old dear friend. You are making friends with people who know exactly what

you feel because they are going thru the same thing as you are. They know

the downhill battle you have everyday trying to keep your blood sugar up

because they have that same fight every single day themselves. I don't care

what darn doctor you've talked to before but the doctor's do not understand

the pain and the low sugar feelings because they haven't actually went thru

the processs themselves. If you could find a diabetic doctor who is actually

a diabetic that would be perfect but unlikely. So everyday when you get up

after you've done your morning routine items go to those same message boards

and start posting and interacting with your online friends again. You will

feel so much better emotionally and you will be helping other's feel better

about themselves.

There is definitely time in the day for you to do it if you just make the

time everyday to do it. You soon will start to enjoy and actually look

forward to talking to your online buddies everyday about their behavior and

your own behavior problems. This is the place where you can talk freely

saying anything you need to say to make you feel better. I don't think

society gives us diabetics the support we need to get thru this on our own.

You really do some strangers to talk to with you about this topic so that

you both can move on and feel better.

I've been seeing a Endocrinologist myself now , (well only 2 times), anyway,

while I'm really happy they finally gave me some medicine that helped me

feel a whole lot better it just seemed to me that they didn't really

understand what I was going thru as far as the pain of it all. I mean sure

she said the tests showed swelling in my legs and feet & that's why I'm

having the pain. But mainly, it was the "way" they said it. Like a little

swelling couldn't cause that much pain. I know they didn't mean to come off

sounding like that but that's the way I took it. They even made a point to

say that a small amount of swelling was not a gauge of the pain only of the

swelling. But still, it
felt like they were thinking to themselves how
I couldn't take a little pain or something. You
know what I mean right? Like they have any idea
how bad the pain is because they've never
felt it. You know how bad the pain is because
you live thru it every single day so don't
forget to make them understand that.

I think I've figured out when you're hurting
really bad if you get up and walk around just
for a few minutes it may help ease some of the
pain. Sometimes it helps, other times not so much.
It never hurts to try. I had hoped putting my
feet up quite often would magically help but
no that doesn't really help the pain at all.
Of course I'm sure that would help with the
actual swelling of the feet so I continue
to do it anyway whenever I can.

I'd love to hear the methods you use to help control
your diabetic emotional problems and your foot pains.
Please share with other's so we can help each other
thru this disease.

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Today was a good diabetic day and I didn't mess up any. I made us a nice pot of Chili and it was good especially with the winds we've had here in Indianapolis today. Nothing beats a bowl of chili when it's cold outside.

I did go back to the neurologist this week and they said I'm still doing just fine. At least the medications they have put me on are helping some of the time with the terrible foot pains. I only have to take my blood sugar tests once a week now so I have chosen Saturday's to be my new day's which was yesterday and all turned out good.

I'm going to try my best to stick to the meal plans that I've listed on this site so that I can contine to stop taking my sugar count. It sounds simple enough I should be able to do it.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Ok, today was one of my favorite simple meals that I eat. Of course, I've had to eat small amounts of it at one time since it's high in carbs the way I used to eat it. I used to make my great northern (I call them white beans), with bacon fat as I'm sure we all did or some still do. Man those would have been great but I didn't do that since I haven't for a year now. Anyway, here's the meal I had.

Menu

1 cup white beans in chicken broth1 3" square cornbread1 diet pepsi

My number is usually 146 with this meal even though it seems like a small portion to me. I guess that's because I used to eat at least 2 cups of beans and at least 2 pieces of cornbread and they were all delicious. These cooked in the chicken broth are pretty good just not great. But they still make me feel like I'm at my grandma's house in Kentucky whenever I have them.

I did go and sign up it was very easy & I played a game sort of like Jeopardy that was really fun for me. Mainly because the categories were: diabetes,television,capitals. All stuff I knew something about. I got about 800 points just for playing a few minutes. I hit quit when I was tired of playing and it logged me right out so I am recommending the site myself.

Friday, December 5, 2008

I went to the doctor a few days ago again after much testing I've been having done lately.
This time he told me I'm in the early stages of Alzheimer's Disease.

Man, like I need something else to be wrong with me; I've got so many health problems already to worry about, but I knew my memory has been chaotic to say the least for the last year. It's a terrible thing losing your memories & associations to certain things that have happened in your lifetime. I wouldn't wish it on anyone that's for sure. Ok, well I would like to see my ex husband come down with it but I think that's only natural.ha

I will keep doing my best to find helpful information for everyone and for myself too & post it as I can. I have several blogs going now all with different topics that I'm interested in. I hope to keep adding bits & articles to them in a timely manner the best I can. I hope to be happily writing in my blogs for a long time to come as it does make me happier than I've been in a long time.
I do so enjoy writing about different subjects.

I thought being Diabetic was at least the last disease a doctor would tell me I had since I feel it is the worst of all that afflicts me right now. Sure the arthritis is horrible but at least I'm still myself with it, only in pain. But now this too? What more can a gal do?

Thursday, December 4, 2008

This morning I had myself a new breakfast. My kids yesterday had stopped at Dunkin Donuts and they bought for me a cinnamon powered sugar glazed cake donut. I decided to hold onto it until this morning for breakfast since I can take double the carbs in the morning that I can in the evening. Besides, it was time for my nightly snack of the day but we had just watched Fred Claus the new Holiday Movie so I had a hankering for cookies. My cookies I settled for were my Murray sugar free shortbread cookies and a glass of milk. They didn't have any of the glitzy decorations on them but they were quite tasty as they are my favorite anyway.

I guess I could have sparkled them up a bit if I had wanted to but I was just too lazy to do it. Anyway, this morning I hate my prized donut and it was pretty darn good tasting. I think it would have been better if they would have used granulated sugar instead of the powdered variety. But I ate it and a half of serving of my cereal and my number was good at only 128 so I'm a happy camper!

you know I just remembered that I also last night did eat one of the tiny little donut balls that the kids brought in to. I think they call them munchins. I wasn't very happy with it as it seemed kind of hard and not nearly soft enough. I had it with my dinner of a bologna sandwich and muncho chips. While I know I shouldn't have eaten it the fact is that it didn't do any damage. My number was not increased in the slightest so I think it helps once in awhile to just have a special treat when we want it.

Do you eat a donut occasionally too? And if you do, do you fit it in to your morning schedule?

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